


You Can't Blame Gravity

by windfallswest



Series: Love or War [5]
Category: Marvel, Marvel 616, New Warriors
Genre: Aftermath, M/M, Smut, Spider-Verse, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-27 00:43:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5027092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfallswest/pseuds/windfallswest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stress, sex, tattoos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Blame Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> Flows on from the events of Spider-Verse.

Vance had lost his filter when he'd been knocked out, so he woke up sneezing. Sam was leaning over him in full gear, more than a little scuffed. 

"Oh thank god. How many fingers am I holding up?" he asked. 

"Sam, both of your hands are on my shoulders. You can stop shaking me now, by the way." _Kid needs some basic first-aid training._ Gingerly, Vance sat up. "What's the situation?" 

"The attacker is gone, but so is Kaine," Faira said. "We were all defeated." 

"Jake Waffles says there were multiple interdimensional energy events, and my helmet agrees," Sam offered. "Or at least I think it does." 

Well, Kaine hadn't interdimensional anything-ed on his own. _Not good news._ Jake Waffles had detected some similar emissions in New York, but that might just have been the Fantastic Four doing...whatever the hell they'd been doing lately. Unfortunately, their own options were pretty limited. The High Evolutionary's dimensional tech didn't go much beyond detection. 

In the meantime, Robbie had called in. Big, angry, and Victorian had knocked him clear out of Transia, and he needed a pick-up. Vance went after him just to feel like he was doing something. 

"Man, that guy packed a punch," Robbie said. "I didn't think I was going to stop bouncing until I hit Siberia. Did he really get Kaine?" 

"We don't know what happened. Surveillance systems in that area are trashed. But he wasn't there when we woke up." 

"Aw, man. I'm really sorry to hear that," Robbie said. "You can tell because I am not making any of the fifty jokes you just left yourself wide open for. But gone is better than a corpse, right? How is Aracely taking it?" 

"Not well. It took half an hour just to get her calmed down. I wish Sil or Selah had been here." Vance grimaced. Selah had some sort of project that was due, and Sil actually had a life outside all of this superheroing. He was having a hard enough time holding it together himself.

Vance flew faster.

 

It was quiet. A minute ago there had been voices, but they were gone now. Trying to reach them was what had given Kaine the strength to break out. Maybe he'd only imagined them. 

Suddenly, Kaine was suffocating. Panic overtook him, and he ripped his way out of that thing, that corpse. His corpse, he was nauseatingly certain. The Inheritors— _stupid; should have stayed still and waited where they couldn't see you_ —but that was why the voices had roused him, wasn't it? Kaine had come to tear the Inheritors limb from limb, and that was what he was going to do. He'd killed one, he thought. Had they killed him? 

He swept the room for movement, but there was only him. Himself, webbing, and shadows. Kaine knew how webbing moved, and he could see in the dark. Broken stone, pillars, ceilings that went up forever—he could hide here, anyway. 

_No, this isn't creepy at all._ What the fuck had happened? _Maybe I killed them all and now I'm stuck here._ In that case, Peter would show up eventually. _Or maybe they killed you and left to finish the job._

Something clicked in the hallway. Reflexively, Kaine launched himself up through shrouds of dangling cobweb to a pillar with a good vantage on that end of the room. Another half-machine Spider-Man clattered in. This one was wearing an even weirder mask than usual. 

"What the hell are you supposed to be?" Kaine asked. 

It hesitated a little. "I...am the Weaver of the Great Web. Who are you?" 

No hostile moves yet; they were both staying put. 

"Where are we?" 

"This is the Great Web. It is the heart of the Loomworld; the heart of all realities." 

"Where the Inheritor bastards live, right. So where are they?" 

"Banished. Trapped. Their reign has ended." The Weaver's mask tilted. "I thought all the Spiders had returned to their home dimensions." 

So, Peter had come and gone. Kaine dropped back to the floor. The Weaver actually managed to look surprised. Abruptly, Kaine realised he was naked and hairy, again. _Great._

"What?" 

"You are the Other. The one they call Kaine." The Weaver cast a glance at the thing in the webs Kaine had crawled out of. "We thought you were dead." 

"Common mistake. It's all over then? And you can get me out of here?" Kaine asked, latching onto the important points.

"Yes, but there are other Spiders still here. Don't you want to let them know—" 

Kaine cut him off. "They don't need to know anything. Just send me back." 

"As you wish." The Weaver clicked up the stairs to the platform where Kaine was standing and pulled himself up onto the sagging web covering an entire wall of the long, cavernous chamber. His mechanical legs moved with uncanny swiftness, like flashes of light off golden knives. "Step through." 

 

Unfortunately, all was quiet on the mountain. Vance sat staring at a hologram of the world. It kept turning placidly through the latest scan. This was about the six hundredth time he'd run through all the known frequencies of interdimensional energy. Still nothing. 

Sheer force of will wasn't going to make a portal appear, though. Vance took another swig of his cooling coffee and turned back towards the article he was reading on interdimensional engineering. His eyes kept crossing, and not just because Reed Richards didn't know any words less than three syllables long. _Man, do I miss the Avengers' archives._ Or, more to the point, their storage facilities: they had to have a dozen different portal devices in mothballs, not to mention half a dozen members who could build one from scratch. Vance was sure they had everything they needed in this place, if he just knew how to put it together. 

_Maybe it's a Spider-thing._ Spider-Man seemed to have disappeared somewhere, too, or Vance would be tempted to get in touch with him. The Avengers had assembled some information on his rogues gallery in recent years, but for such a mouthy guy, Spider-Man was notoriously tight-lipped. If he kept any kind of database, Vance had never heard of it.

The alarm sounded just as Vance was reaching across the lab to where the coffee maker sat and pouring the grounds for a new pot. He dropped the bag and scrambled frantically for the controls. Manhattan again. The FF's twitter feed was quiet for once, nothing interesting in days; and at this hour on the East Coast even Johnny Storm ought to be asleep. 

Hope stirred in Vance's chest. A break at last? The energy profiles matched. He was just on the verge of calling Jake Waffles on the intercom and getting the mountain on its way back to New York, Avengers be damned, when a swirl of light like the one that had dropped their last visitor on them appeared not ten feet away. 

A figure staggered out of it. Vance moved to contain it even as he lifted himself away from the encumbrances of workstation and chair (not to mention the delicate machinery), taking position out of its direct line of fire.

"Justice to all New Warriors. We have an intruder. He—" had long hair and a beard and had dropped, stark naked, into a familiar fighting crouch, "—appeared through an interdimensional portal. Identity and intentions unknown. I have him contained for the moment."

His body, the way he moved—this couldn't be Spider-Man, could it? Vance double-checked his left shoulder, but no, there was no tattoo. "Who are you?"

Something came flying through the door behind him. The wave of joy and relief that hit Vance was so overpowering he wobbled in mid-air.

"Kaine!"

Aracely stopped just short of running full-tilt into Vance's force-bubble. She snapped her head around to glare up at him. 

"Let him out of there!"

The intruder straightened slowly as Vance alighted next to Aracely. He laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Aracely, it's not—" he met the naked man's burning gaze, "—Kaine?"

The man in the bubble gave him the finger.

"Oh my god." The emotion he was feeling now was all his own, and it almost took his legs out from under him. 

Vance let his force-field drop immediately. More footsteps were only now echoing down the corridor; Aracely must have started running the instant Kaine appeared. Faira was fastest; she would be next through the door.

"You look like hell." 

It was definitely Kaine's voice. Vance had to bite his lip to restrain a bout of hysterical laughter.

" _I_ look like—is there more incoming?" Vance pulled himself together enough to ask. 

Kaine shook his head. "It's over."

Vance measured his gaze for a moment, then nodded. "Stand down everybody. It's just Kaine coming back."

"Kaine's back? Is he okay? Whoa—no pants! Hairy guy with no pants!" There was a sound like Robbie clapping his hands over his face; Vance still hadn't managed to tear his eyes from Kaine.

These were all very good questions. Kaine did not look like he was in an answering mood, though.

Vance cleared his throat. "Sorry people; false alarm. Good response time, though. You're sure we're secure?"

" _That_ is definitely unsecured," Robbie said loudly.

"Silence, human," Faira snarled. "This is no fit hour for your japery."

"No one's coming," Kaine said. 

_Good enough for now._ Vance swayed in closer and—

 

Vance fell forward limply onto Kaine's chest. Without thinking, he brought his arms up to catch him.

Silence.

"Did...did he just faint?" Mark asked.

Speedball started snickering. Faira glared at him even more murderously. Her excessively long hair was a huge, tangled cloud. If it weren't for the blue skin, Kaine might not have even recognised her.

"He's asleep." Aracely yawned hugely. "He hasn't slept since you went with the Spider army. It was very noisy. Everyone's fine, by the way."

 _No, they're not._ Aracely stepped back, suddenly looking concerned. With a sigh, Kaine hefted Vance over his shoulder. The blasted cape hanging down at least afforded him some measure of modesty. He hadn't not-stopped for pants on Loomworld just to end up back in the middle of idiot central. _If I ever see that Weaver guy again, I'm going to punch him in what passes for his face._

Straight from one band of idealistic morons to another. He opened the door to Vance's room without bothering to turn on the lights and dropped him fully-clothed on the bed. Without really thinking about it, Kaine collapsed beside him.

 

When Vance woke up, Kaine was in bed with him, half-wrapped in the blanket they were lying on top of. The sheer novelty would have tempted him to stay, except for a monstrous need to piss. 

Vance shaved, showered, and peed, not in that order, then dressed in street clothes. That costume needed to be washed, badly. Vance himself felt human for the first time in days, although the release from helpless suppressed terror probably had something to do with that, too.

Curiously, he brushed his fingertips over the unmarked skin of Kaine's shoulder. His eyes popped open instantly. Rolling onto his back, he lifted a hand to loosely clasp Vance's forearm. 

"Like the new look."

"Bite me, Super Tights."

"Got a razor you can borrow. Someone else might have scissors," Vance told him. Or Faira carried a lot of knives.

Kaine exhaled heavily and nearly yanked Vance off his feet pulling himself up, fingers lingering as he relinquished Vance's hand. "I'll take care of it. Gonna need a favour, though."

"What is it?"

"I don't have any clothes here."

 _And no one on the team has anything but spandex that could fit him._ As tempting as the idea of Kaine lazing naked in Vance's bed was... "You've got some somewhere, right?"

Kaine gave him an unimpressed look. "I've got an apartment in Houston. Aracely knows where it is. Just get the dog to put the mountain where she can get to it."

"I can go," offered Vance.

Kaine's expression was dubious.

"Do you really want a sixteen-year-old girl going through your underwear?" Vance asked.

That did it. "Yeah, okay. You got something to write with?"

Vance unlocked his phone and handed it over. "Keys?"

Kaine raised an eyebrow. "Are you a telekinetic or what?"

 

"Your apartment is a rat-hole."

Kaine gave him a sour look from his position sprawled on his back across Vance's entire bed. "What, you think I'm gonna get mugged?"

"No, I think you're going to fall through the floor," Vance told him.

"Are you calling me fat?"

"I-I—" _Wait._ Vance narrowed his eyes.

"Ugh; this is why I don't hang out with Spider-Man more often. Are you going to give me my clothes or what?"

"I don't know; I kind of like having you lounging around naked." Vance tossed the duffel bag he'd brought back from Kaine's crap-shack apartment onto the dresser. "Why does it smell like burned hair in here?"

"You never got me those scissors."

Vance reached down to brush his fingers over Kaine's short hair; the ends were oddly stiff. Kaine batted his hand away.

"Are you ever going to tell me what happened?" Vance asked.

Kaine groaned. "I swear, if I never think about any of it again, it will be too soon."

This time, Vance dragged his fingers across Kaine's lips. Kaine nipped them, then dragged his hand down to his chest. Vance bent low to press their lips together. After a moment, he climbed onto the bed.

Kaine rolled on top of him almost immediately. He kissed searchingly, until neither of them could get enough air around the edges. Reluctant to break, neither of them pulled back far.

"So, you've really never been with a guy before?" Kaine asked, his hand worming up under Vance's shirt.

"No, just you." 

"But you've been with women, right?" 

"Yes." Where was _this_ coming from?

"Women, plural?" pressed Kaine.

"Yes." _Barely._

Kaine might have just been shifting his weight, except his thigh was now putting pressure directly on Vance's cock. He leaned in and Vance had to muffle an involuntary noise as his hips jerked a little, helplessly.

"Then you know how to fuck."

Vance turned his head to get a better look at Kaine. He was shaved for once, but he didn't look any less wild than he had the previous night. Hungry. He threw his needs down like a challenge because he didn't know how to ask. Like Vance might say no. Like he might not realise he was saying yes this way.

And Vance did the same thing, answering with his body because Kaine was so damned skittish. He would have been more confident using words than wrestling and groping, but he had to admit that Kaine's body-language was its own incentive to learn. 

The mattress absorbed the impact as they reversed positions again. Vance was kneeling over Kaine with his shirt hanging open and his belt undone. Kaine was, of course, still naked, already drawing his knees up and apart in anticipation of what was to come. Vance had to stop and catch his breath.

"Yeah," he said at last, "I think I can work with this."

Kaine kicked him playfully and the world was spinning around them again. It was catharsis for all the tension and boiling emotion that had had no outlet without the adrenaline rush of a rematch. Better in some ways, because Kaine was here and real and safe and taking his pants off, which Vance generally discouraged during a fight. _Especially if he's going to be that handsy about it._ And if he went much further, molesting him back was going to get a lot more difficult.

Vance scrambled in his nightstand for the lube and a condom. Kaine flung his jeans across the room with what probably qualified as abnormal relish and looked up at the noise.

"I think you have to open the drawer first."

The drawer shot open. Vance glared at him. "Shut up."

"Are you sure you know how to do this?"

Vance flipped him onto his back, which made a satisfying sound impacting the mattress. "Very sure."

Well, so it was maybe a _little_ intimidating being in this exact position for the first time. But it wasn't like he didn't know where everything went; and god, fucking Kaine. Actually _fucking Kaine_. Vance squeezed the base of his cock to re-establish some control.

His hands were already on Kaine's knees, so he started there. All the hair had surprised him last night because Kaine wasn't terribly hairy otherwise. The muscle of his thighs was unreal. Vance traced one long contour running up to Kaine's groin with his lips. Gently, he exhaled, and his hot breath brought up goose bumps on the sensitive skin. Kaine drew his leg further up in reaction. 

Vance dipped his shoulder under it and edged in closer. A swipe of his tongue along the flexed muscle. A scrape of his teeth, and Kaine didn't quite swallow a noise in his throat. 

Pulling back, he nipped at a spot closer to Kaine's knee and started making his way up again. Each bite was just a little harder, longer, wetter than the last, until Vance was sucking a vivid mark over a straining tendon. Somewhere far above, Kaine was gasping _shitshitshitshitshitshit_ like a mantra.

He ignored Kaine's cock in favour of his balls. Spreading a restraining hand over his stomach, Vance took each into his mouth in turn, plying them with tongue and suction while he poured lube onto his other hand. 

His slick thumb caught his lip as he stroked the delicate skin behind Kaine's balls. Simple pressure repeated until Kaine couldn't help but bear down, looking for penetration. It wasn't Vance's hand on his stomach keeping his hips still; that was just a small intimacy, to feel every twitch and shiver, the flex as Kaine rolled up a little to clench his fingers in Vance's hair.

Vance declined to be rushed. His thumb was pressing slow circles hard around the pucker of Kaine's asshole; now he flexed it, pulling at the lip. Just a little more and he was inside. He slid it out and back in experimentally; Kaine arched under his hand. Vance kept at it, worrying the hole from the inside until it started to relax. It looked so obscene. _God._ Vance realised he was rubbing off against the bed. 

Reluctantly, he drew his thumb out. Pausing for more lube, he replaced it with his first two fingers, sinking them to the knuckles in one careful push.

Kaine's hands in his hair yanked him up, not far, just to where Kaine's dick jutted up angrily into the air. With his hips pinned, he rubbed the side of Vance's face against it in lieu of thrusting. The head smeared sticky fluid over his cheek, drawing a groan of relief from Kaine. 

"Show you, bastard," he growled semi-coherently.

"Sure, show me." Vance's lips brushed the side of the shaft.

Kaine did. He took Vance by the head again and pulled him onto his cock. Vance's mouth was filled instantly with his taste. He forgot the plan and went with it, letting Kaine's hands move him while he applied as much suction as he could manage. His fingers twisting, curling, thrusting in and out of Kaine became a way to spur him to react, shooting precome and pulling him down harder.

Kaine came with a shout. Vance caught the first shot on the tip of his tongue and he pulled off to gasp for breath. The rest of it painted white lines over Kaine's belly and the hand Vance had planted there.

He leaned up to lick at it. It wasn't until Kaine groaned that he realised his fingers were still inside him. He'd slipped a third in at some point after they'd gotten side-tracked and Kaine's body was clenching spasmodically around his intrusion.

"Uh," Vance cleared his throat and tried to think a second; his voice still came out hoarsely. "Habit? Women, you know. I can stop if you—"

"Don't. You. Dare," Kaine warned. He almost managed to make a moan sound threatening. 

Watching his face closely, Vance moved his hand again; Kaine gave a full-body shudder, but the noise he made still sounded appreciative. Dragging messy fingers over Kaine's messy front got him a hot look from hooded eyes.

It was more than he could resist. Vance stretched upwards pressed their mouths together. He poured himself into the kiss, slow and steady, until Kaine stopped trailing off with his eyelids shivering closed and his hips started rolling with Vance's thrusts again, building to a shared rhythm. Between them, Kaine's dick was already stirring; Vance's, rubbing torturously along the back of his thigh, was getting harder and harder to ignore.

"Kaine," Vance's voice came out strained, "you ready?"

"Hnm."

Flattering, that he had reduced Kaine to incoherent noises; but not actually a helpful response. Vance buried a groan in the pillar of his neck. " _Kaine._ "

"Yes." 

_Yes._ Vance forced himself to breathe, to pull his fingers out of Kaine slowly. He reached into the nightstand to find a condom with his hand, for the time it took and because he didn't think he could manage it the other way. Touching himself as little as possible, Vance rolled it on and lined himself up. 

It took all of Vance's self-control not to just slam in—and, okay, Kaine might not have minded, but Vance was still a, a gentleman, all right? It sounded stupid; Kaine would probably laugh his ass off. As much as Vance enjoyed the passion, though, as painfully turned-on as he was right now, it was important to him to show Kaine he cared. Kaine didn't get a lot of that, mostly because he didn't accept it from anyone; and if Vance had to liquefy his brains before he'd take it, then that was what he was going to do. Positive reinforcement was a thing, right?

So Vance took it slow; he got in close, chest to chest and face to face. It felt like a victory when Kaine drew open hands over his back in slow strokes, squeezing his shoulders on a particularly well-aimed thrust and wrapping his legs around Vance's waist. 

Kaine was tighter than he'd expected, and even hotter around Vance's cock than he'd seemed around his fingers. It was at once like and unlike being with a woman. Sex just didn't _feel_ like anything else, no matter who was putting what where. It was a revelation, sensation and need and connexion with another person, as close as it was possible to get. 

They moved together, fluid thrusts rolling one into the next as he sank into Kaine over and over. Kaine's filter was just gone, making these incredible noises right in Vance's ear. 

God, his cock was hard again. Already? It felt like they'd been doing this for hours, forever, nothing but this. The mother of all endorphin highs was buzzing just under Vance's skin, but sweat was running off of him in torrents, and his muscles were locked tight, straining against the orgasm that wanted to rip its way out of him.

Reaching down, he closed his hand around Kaine's dick. There wasn't a lot of room to manoeuvre; the constant motion of their bodies pushed his cock through Vance's grip, and Vance could turn his wrist and swipe his thumb around, over, below the head. There was that bit of extra give still from the foreskin, dragging as Kaine's dick slid up and down, slick with precome and the lube from Vance's hand. 

It caught him off-guard when Kaine's body stuttered in their rhythm, like missing a step. There was a half-second of realisation with Kaine's shooting cock in his hand, and then Vance was simply gone. 

His well-intentioned attempt to slide out and off and entertain a temporary coma was short-circuited by Kaine's arms still clamped around him. _Okay, I can stay here._ Vance rearranged himself so his arm wasn't trapped between them at such an odd angle and settled in, relaxing and listening as Kaine's breathing evened out.

They were too stuck-together for Kaine to just sneak off the way he usually did. It took a couple of tries, but Vance finally got it together enough to soak a washcloth under the faucet and float it out of the bathroom—it was harder without line of sight, okay? Not that that excused dropping it over Kaine's sniggering face...

Vance graciously ceded the first shower. He was still lying facedown in the pillows when Kaine emerged.

"All yours. I'm starving." Vance had dropped some food off earlier, but that had been a while ago and who knew when he'd last eaten before that? 

"You should talk to Aracely," Vance told him, rolling lazily onto his back.

"She came by and pestered me through the door for a while when you were out."

"She was really worried about you." Vance watched him dress through slitted eyes. What had happened to him? Where had he been? How had he gone from getting tossed around like the rest of them to walking naked through a portal with six months of hair-growth and all visible marks erased? 

Vance didn't think he was an imposter—the clone of a clone?—but then, Robbie had been replaced for a year and none of them had noticed anything. They hadn't had a telepath on the team then, though. The bond Aracely shared with Kaine was strong and kind of weird, not to say disturbing, and she hadn't hesitated in identifying him. None of them understood her powers well, though, not even her. Subconscious control could fall victim to subconscious desires. Still, so far her pronouncements had been at the most weird, not wrong.

 

Kaine found Vance the next morning running stairs somewhere in the bowels of the mountain. From the amount of sweat, he'd been at it for a while now. 

Kaine jumped down to the next landing and waited. Alerted by the noise, Vance swept the space with a glance and nodded at him.

"Hey," Vance said, swiping his forearm across his face, when he came up even. The exertion had flushed his face and his eyes were bright. "Let myself get out of shape, riding around in that truck." He was smiling again, a politely inquiring expression on his face. 

"Um." _Snap out of it._ "Are we still in Houston?"

"As much as we're anywhere," Vance confirmed a little dryly. "Well, actually out in the bay." 

"Which one?" 

"The big one that's sort of round on one end? Despite what Google maps would lead you to believe, these things don't have little legends on them when viewed from above."

"Are we on any ferry routes?"

Vance flashed him a grin. "I'll fly you in. Just let me grab a quick shower first?"

Kaine shrugged, trying not to let on just what he thought about Vance in the shower, or Vance breathing hard and covered in sweat, for that matter. There was a line, and that was on the other side of it.

"Fifteen minutes in the rec room?"

Kaine shot a web into the ductwork high overhead and cocked an eyebrow at him. "If it takes you that long to get up there."

He swung away, leaving Vance huffing behind him.

Of course, that meant Kaine was left hanging around the not-especially-converted lab everybody else spent all their time in. Faira, the dog, and the kid with the horn were involved in a surprisingly tense video-game battle involving brightly coloured cartoon people while Robbie poked at his phone on the other end of the couch. Aracely was floating (she'd been doing that a lot lately), her attention divided equally between these two attractions. Kaine wondered of this was what college was like.

"Does Amazon deliver to quantumly indeterminate mountains?" Robbie asked the room at large. "Seriously, we need like a PO box or something."

"...The river?" Kaine asked blankly.

Everyone turned to stare at him. Onscreen, two blocky figures fell to their deaths with little computerised yelps of horror.

"Well, at least he's got looks," Robbie said finally. "Nice to finally see your face, by the way. I didn't think you Spiders ever took the masks off."

"I don't have a costume anymore," Kaine pointed out.

Robbie cranked his neck over his shoulder. "Hey, Aracely, do you still have that blue sweatshirt? We need to cut off the arms and spray-paint a spider on the chest. Then he'll _really_ be the Scarlet Spider."

"You never even met the Scarlet Spider," Vance said from the doorway. He was in real clothes, thank god.

"True," Robbie agreed happily. "Stuck in dimensional limbo for a year; at least it went by fast. Wasn't he Spider-Man for a while, though? Did we ever decide?"

"He was. He died," Aracely said blithely. "Kaine doesn't like to talk about it, especially not now after—oh, sorry," she apologised, glancing guiltily at Kaine's darkening face. "But don't you want to tell them about—"

"No."

They were all staring at him again. Kaine crossed his arms and frowned.

"Do not press him if he does not wish to speak," Faira said.

 _At least_ someone's _on my side._

"No kidding," Mark muttered.

"Are you ready?" Kaine asked Vance.

"Yeah. Anybody else need to go into town?"

There was a chorus of negatives, plus a request for a cowboy hat from Robbie, which Vance ignored. 

"So, what's the deal with him, anyway?" Kaine asked as they sailed through the air over—this looked like Trinity Bay.

"What, you're a clone of _Spider-Man_ and the wise-cracking bothers you?" Vance asked.

"Do you see me hanging out with Spider-Man?"

Vance tilted his head in acknowledgment. "Fair point. Well, obviously it was hard for him after Stamford, but he's doing a lot better now."

"Huh?"

"You know. Everyone knows. Stamford, Connecticut? The Superhero Civil War? What, were you living under a rock?" Vance frowned at his increasingly clueless expression.

"Secure medical facility. No news, even if I'd been in any condition to care," Kaine answered tersely.

He could practically feel the intensity of Vance's curiosity beating on him along with the Texan sun. Vance had him cornered, in a perfect position to press for answers, but for some reason he didn't. Maybe he was just smart enough to know he wouldn't like the ones he'd get.

They were already slowing down above the shoreline, heading in the right direction to reach Kaine's apartment. Vance was veering off, though, sweeping the area like he was looking for something, still too high up for anyone to really see anything.

The drop came without warning. Kaine swallowed a shout of surprise and almost wished for his spider-sense back, not that it had ever been useful to him in the same way as Peter's or Ben's. Bad enough Aracely had creepy, incomprehensible visions.

"Sorry; I wanted to get us down before anyone saw." 

Vance had landed next to a motorcycle chained to a telephone pole. It looked like an older-model Victory. He frowned at the lock and it popped open, the chain coiling politely around his hand.

Kaine blinked. "Wait, you're just going to steal that motorcycle?"

Vance traded the chain for a helmet from a case on the back. "It's mine. Lost the key to the lock ages ago, but like you said: telekinetic."

"Seriously?"

Vance shrugged. "I figure I'm safer than most people would be. And it gets great gas mileage. A friend was watching it for me; I picked it up the last time we were in New York." 

"Been a long time since I rode a bike like this," said Kaine, mostly to himself, trailing his fingers over the clean lines. 

Vance interrupted his reverie. "Your city, so you can drive; but you're still wearing a helmet."

He caught the one Vance threw at him. Kaine hadn't exactly planned on inviting him along; but where he was going, he was going to need a ride home afterwards, and Vance would do as well as a cab.

Kaine had mostly gotten used to his new lease on life, but every once in a while, something still caught him off-guard. As he put the bike in neutral and prepared to start it up, he felt himself tense. The constant vibration of the engine had always been as painful as skidding across asphalt at sixty miles an hour. 

The bike growled to life, and Kaine just sat there. He realised he was waiting for the pain to hit, and he felt like laughing.

"Hang on, Super Tights." 

Vance's arms were already linked around him, so he put it in gear and peeled out. It was predictable Houston weather, muggy with clouds rolling in. Vance might end up regretting the motorcycle. 

Wind whipped the humidity away as Kaine wove in and out through traffic. Normal people, with their pick-ups and SUVs and compact cars, going out to lunch or running errands, or whatever it was normal people did. No dimension-hopping spider-armies or life-sucking super-villains or even superheroes. Except for the two of them.

"I said drive, not get us pulled over! Do you even have a licence?" Vance shouted. Kaine pretended not to hear him. 

"This isn't your apartment," Vance said when they pulled in across the street from the tattoo parlour.

"Nothing gets past you, does it? I've got an appointment." Kaine nodded at the faded sign over the storefront. "Thanks for the ride. You don't have to stick around."

"Are you kidding? What if another giant stuffed bear comes after you?"

"If there's another one of those things out there, I'm going to fucking kill myself."

Bringing Vance along was worth it if only to see him stick out like a sore thumb amidst the walls of flash art snakes and winged skulls and old-style sailor tatts, not to mention the number of people walking around with visible ink, gauges in their ears, or unnatural hair-colours. Not that this place was actually a hole, even though it cultivated a bit of the aesthetic; Vance was just so aggressively clean-cut. Granted, he only seemed a little uncomfortable, striking up casual conversation with a couple of other people waiting around. New York superheroes were probably even harder to faze than regular New Yorkers. _I should have known._

The guy at the front desk sent them back. Kaine's tattooist took one look at him standing in the door to her studio and sighed. Cierra's hair was still green on one side and buzzed on the other, but now there was some kind of pattern shaved into it, reminiscent of some of the patterns on her arms. Today, her lips were somehow copper; she pursed them, a sour expression on her face.

"Miss me?"

"I should kick your ass. Get in here." Her eye caught on Vance, following him through. "Brought someone for me to talk to this time, huh? Or dare I hope you're only here for moral support?"

Kaine snorted. Vance stuck out his hand. "Vance. I guess I'm just playing chauffer today."

Cierra shook it briefly but firmly; Kaine scowled at the once-over she gave him. "Cierra; nice to meet you. You can have a seat over there." She pointed, then turned her attention to Kaine. "Okay, big boy, let's see the damage. Off with the shirt."

Kaine stripped it off over his head and hopped into the chair. He tossed his balled-up shirt at Vance, who had the sense at least to catch it with his hands. He folded it because—fuck knew; probably he just couldn't help himself.

Cierra pulled his design and a new sheet of tracing paper, reaching for a pen. "Let me see if I remember how this goes... Or do you want to change it up this time?"

"No thanks. I'll be keeping this one for a while." Even though he kept coming back, dying wasn't pleasant. The coming back wasn't all that enjoyable, either.

"Most of my patrons just come back for touch-ups. Do _you_ know what he keeps doing to lose this thing?" she asked aside to Vance as she traced a fresh stencil with quick, decisive strokes. 

"Why, how many times has he been in here?"

"This is the second time I've had to put it back on," Cierra told him. "I'm not sure whether to be flattered or offended."

She started manhandling him around until everything had been cleaned and he was positioned to her satisfaction. The paper was cool and damp when she applied it to Kaine's skin. Vance was watching him closely.

"Sorry, not a clue. You haven't been just drawing it on, have you?"

Cierra turned on the needle and held it up. "Wanna check?"

"Uh, no. That's okay."

Laughing, Cierra turned it off and set it down again, fitting pieces together. Vance chatted easily with her about the cross-country trip he'd been on with Speedball that the Evolutionary business had interrupted. Kaine let it wash over him like the sting of the needle. Compared with he was used to, it was barely worth noticing, and it would be over soon enough. After he'd failed to bully Cierra into doing the first one all in one sitting, he'd given up and let her set her own timetable. Even if he _could_ take it and he _did_ heal fast, he wanted this to look good.

Despite his bluster, Kaine wasn't sure how long he was going to make it before he faltered and let the monster inside come raging back up to the surface. How long before Vance had to put his money where his mouth was and take him down? How long could he fight who he was? He wasn't Peter Parker, and he wasn't Spider-Man. He was just the spider.

Vance's eyes caught his and held for a long, long time. Kaine could have looked away, but he didn't, maybe for the same reason he didn't flinch from the needles driving over and over into his flesh. It was harder filtering him out after that, because he knew without anything having to be said that even though Vance was addressing Cierra, he was talking to Kaine.

The session was only a few hours: it had been short notice; and anyway, the repetition was making Cierra fast. It was almost like a message: he could cut his hair, mark himself, put on a costume like a superhero, but it wouldn't change the truth. The universe needed him to be a monster, and that was what he was.

Fuck. _Fuck it._ He was done, he was so done being screwed around with. The universe could kiss his ass. Kaine held Vance's dark eyes, plunging into him like the needles and leaving their marks behind where they would scar. He'd learned a long time ago that even if all you had was pain, you could take control of it, if only for a little while.

Kaine felt better by the time they were done. The tattoo looked good. He gave Cierra a smile before she started wrapping him up. "Thanks."

"Well, I ought to have it down by now." But she flashed him a lopsided grin as she smeared stuff over the tattoo. 

Vance handed him his shirt back after Cierra finished. Kaine nodded through the aftercare instructions; he'd be fine by tomorrow, but it was easier just to let her schedule the next sitting for a few weeks and not blow his precious secret identity.

"You heard the lady; no driving," Vance told him once they were outside again. 

It had rained while they were inside, but it had tapered off to a drizzle now, clouds still grey and lowering overhead. The air was thick enough to drink. 

Kaine rolled his eyes but took the helmet Vance gave him and climbed on behind. He thought Vance had some kind of light shield around them again. He could feel it as the tyres hissed on the wet road, holding him on the bike.

Vance handled the bike comfortably, if not with a lot of flair. They fit together maybe a little bit more closely than was strictly necessary, leaning into the turns. The apartment building Kaine directed him to was a little run-down, but it wasn't _actually_ a tenement. The landlord took the rent in cash and didn't ask questions. There was no room service, but delivery was almost as good.

"Are you going to be okay on your own?" Vance asked.

Kaine gave him a flat look. Smiling like he enjoyed pissing Kaine off (which he did), Vance reached out and took his spare helmet back. 

After he'd put it in the case, Kaine drew him in with an arm around his waist, kissing him long and deep. Someone hooted at them and Vance pulled away, face bright red.

"See you around, Super Tights." Kaine started up the stairs, his heart inexplicably lighter in his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> You can't blame gravity for falling in love.  
>  _—Albert Einstein_


End file.
